


Caption This

by RedRowan



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, New Year's Kiss, Past Relationships Mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 02:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22068649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRowan/pseuds/RedRowan
Summary: Foggy reminisces on his New Year's tradition.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62
Collections: DDE’s 2020 New Year’s Day Exchange





	Caption This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rrrNightingale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rrrNightingale/gifts).



> For rrrNightingale, who gave me the prompt "selfie"! Happy New Year!

“Your Memories on Facebook”

Foggy’s phone is the only light in the room. The sun isn’t quite up yet, but Foggy can’t get back to sleep, and can’t be bothered to roll over and turn on the light. He holds his phone up as he scrolls through Facebook.

“We thought you’d like to look back on this post from 1 year ago.”

It’s Foggy’s annual New Year’s selfie. In it, he and Marci are smiling and holding flutes of champagne. They look polished, put-together, and happy. The caption says “Happy New Year!”

That one hurts.

Foggy presses the option to “See more memories.”

Foggy’s New Year’s selfie tradition started when he first got his Facebook account. Except back then, he didn’t have a phone with a front-facing camera, and the word “selfie” had yet to enter the lexicon, so it was just a New Year’s photo. Foggy finds the earliest one, from undergrad. He has long hair and is holding a red solo cup, and his eyes are closed. He had captioned it “Starting the New Year with a bang!”

Foggy tries to remember that party. He’s pretty sure it was at Katie and Maureen’s apartment, back when they’d been living together. He’d had a crush on Maureen, and had taken a photo of her and some friend whose name he forgets, and she’d offered to take a picture of him. Who could say no?

Maureen moved to Texas and got married after undergrad. She has two kids now, and posts adorable pictures on Facebook.

It’s only two more pictures before Matt appears, all floppy hair and too-big sweaters. He looks like a child in the first picture. To be honest, so does the Foggy next to him. Their faces look rounder, softer, even though they’re in their twenties by then. They look so innocent. The caption reads “Let’s kick some ass in the new year!”

OK, maybe not that innocent. Foggy and Matt are flanked by Naomi and Britt, both of whom Matt hooked up with later in the year. It’s a law school party, so the solo cups have been left behind for actual wine glasses (just glasses, though, no flutes yet). Foggy tries to remember who was the host that year, then almost laughs out loud when he remembers that it was Paul, who had gotten a little too drunk on champagne and had tried to hug every single person at the party, telling each and every one of them that he loved them.

He wrapped his arms around Foggy, burying his face in Foggy’s chest. “You’re so comfortable,” he tried to whisper in Foggy’s ear, and succeeded in whispering to Foggy’s shoulder, “I love you.”

“And I love you!” Paul cried as he threw himself on Matt. “You’re so pretty, Matt. Do you know how pretty you are? And you’re smart! I love that you’re smart!”

He’d kept babbling as Foggy and Matt had convinced him to drink some water and taken him to bed. Foggy pulled off Paul’s shoes, and Matt put the garbage can next to the bed.

“Think he’s going to remember this?” Foggy said as they turned off the lights and closed the door.

“Nah,” Matt said.

“We going to make fun of him for the next year for this?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Do you know how pretty you are, Matt?”

Matt laughed, and yes, he was very pretty.

“Not really,” he said. “But I do get feedback from time to time.”

“Well, that jawline should be illegal,” Foggy said, mock-punching said jawline. “I love you, buddy.”

“Love you too, man,” Matt said, and Foggy stepped in and hugged him.

Foggy smiles, a little, looking at the photo on his phone. It had been the first time he’d told Matt he loved him.

The next year was the year Foggy got a new phone with a front-facing camera. The picture is an awkward selfie, Matt squashed into his side. The angle is bad, and Foggy thinks it emphasizes his double chin, even though Matt looks gorgeous as usual. It took Foggy a while to figure out how to hold his phone for selfies. The caption reads “One more year with this guy!”

It’s the first New Year’s selfie with just the two of them, but there are so many more. There’s a stretch, coinciding with Foggy’s long hair disappearing, where there are no parties, just him and Matt on the couch in one of their apartments, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders.

Karen arrives three selfies ago, with the picture captioned “Nelson and Murdock and Page wish you a Happy New Year!”. The picture is taken at an angle, so Foggy could fit all three of them in, Matt squashed between himself and Karen. Karen is holding the champagne bottle she triumphantly opened, and they were crammed into her tiny galley kitchen because they had been trying to find her (mostly unused) nice wine glasses, and Matt, being already a little drunk, had offered to help even though Karen didn’t know about his senses yet. He’d been trying to insist that he could help, and Karen had been laughing, and Foggy had desperately wanted to freeze that moment in amber and carry it with him.

When midnight came, there had been chaste pecks on the cheek all around, and Karen, raising her glass in a toast, had said, “It’s been a hell of a year, hasn’t it?”

“You can say that again,” Foggy said.

“But I’m really glad,” she said, “for everything that’s happened. That we’re all here, together. So here’s to an amazing year.” She clinked her glass against Matt’s, and Foggy brought his in.

“To an amazing year,” Matt said.

They were wrong, of course. The next selfie, Foggy is with Marci at Linda Chao’s New Year’s party in the Upper West Side. The champagne flutes are crystal, and Foggy remembers that Marci is hiding a caviar blini behind her back from the camera. The caption just says “Happy New Year!”

He’d called Karen, after kissing Marci at midnight. She’d been at Ellison’s New Year’s party, which had sounded considerably less tasteful and more fun. After the call, Foggy had stared at his phone, his thumb hovering over Matt’s name, but he’d never pressed it. He was probably out being Daredevil, Foggy had reasoned. No need to bother him.

There’s another layer to that memory. Midnight, last year, Foggy had called Karen again from Chao’s party, and when he’d finished, he’d remembered not calling Matt the year before.

“Foggy bear, are you OK?” Marci said, coming up behind him and putting her hand on his back.

Foggy had sniffed and quickly wiped at his eyes with a napkin.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” she said, coming around to face him. “I know you’re having a hard time.”

“Yeah…hell of a year.”

Marci nodded. “We can go, if you want. I’ve schmoozed with everyone here, anyway, and they’re all getting too drunk to remember anything I say.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

One year (and a few hours) ago, he’d taken a photo with Marci where they’d looked like they were on top of the world. Kept up appearances, even though Foggy had a gnawing void inside him where his best friend used to be.

Then said best friend came back from the dead, and somehow Foggy wound up running a law firm out of his parents’ butcher shop, and Marci had told him she loved him, but her goals in life were too different from his, and Foggy couldn’t argue any of it. She’d kept the apartment, and Foggy had found a tiny one back in Hell’s Kitchen. Tiny, but big enough for a party of three.

Matt had been late, showing up at 11:30 on the fire escape in his Daredevil suit.

“Do we want to know?” Karen said.

Matt had actually screwed up his face as he thought about it.

“How squeamish are you about sewers?” he said.

“OK, no sewer water on the couch! Suit off!” Foggy said, and Matt had turned that devilish (pun intended) grin on him. “I will get you some clothes. After you shower.”

Matt had emerged from the shower at 11:45, wearing Foggy’s sweatpants and hoodie, looking more like the kid from law school than he had in a while. Karen had manhandled him over to Foggy, who had taken their selfie, before Karen had handed out wine glasses and turned on the live stream of Times Square. They counted down, and Karen popped the champagne, and Matt turned and hugged Foggy and kissed him on the lips.

Matt had never kissed Foggy on the lips before.

Karen apparently didn’t notice, as she promptly wrapped her arms around each of their necks and planted a kiss on each of their cheeks. She left after the bottle of champagne was finished, saying she wanted to avoid the crowds coming down from Times Square. Which left Foggy and Matt sitting on the couch.

“Uh,” Foggy said.

“Yeah,” Matt said.

Nothing.

Foggy said, “I just wanted to ask -“ at the same time as Matt said, “So I should probably -“

“No, you go first,” Matt said.

“No, go ahead,” Foggy said.

“OK. Um…I really fucked things up.”

“Yes.”

“And I don’t want to fuck things up any more.”

“Good.”

“But being back at work with you, it’s made me realize that I don’t want things to go back to how they used to be.”

“OK.”

“They can, though, if you want them to.”

“Matt,” Foggy said. “You gotta tell me what the alternative is.”

Matt dropped his hand on top of Foggy’s, and intertwined their fingers.

“This,” he said. “I want…to try…to be…” He gestured inarticulately with their linked hands.

Foggy finally took pity on him and leaned in to kiss him. Not a peck, or a brush, but an unmistakable kiss.

“That,” Matt finished, and Foggy smiled.

“Good,” Foggy said. “I want that too.”

Matt rolls over in bed, throwing his arm over Foggy.

“What time is it?” he mumbles.

“Around six,” Foggy says, looking at the picture from last night, of him, Matt, and Karen.

“What are you doing at six in the morning?” Matt says, although it’s a little indistinct, since he has his face pressed against Foggy’s shoulder.

“Posting the selfie from last night,” Foggy says. “You look adorable.” He maneuvers his arm so that it’s wrapped around Matt.

“What’s the caption this year?” Matt says.

“‘Making a new start in the new year,’” Foggy says.

“‘New start,’” Matt says, and he leans up and kisses Foggy. “I like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also available on [tumblr](https://blog-redrowan.tumblr.com)!


End file.
